Review of MECOS microscopy complex utilities

Family of MECOS-C2 automated microscopy systems includes hardware-software complexes with different equipment and programs compositions.  Thanks to modular architecture all types of standard microscopy techniques (bright field, dark field, polarization, reflected, inverted, luminescent), different levels of output, automation, image quality, multifunctionality can be offered. Variety of properties are supported by usage of many typical well-known models of microscopes, videocameras, motorized utilities, computers, together with large group of functional programs for different analyses, and together with a lot of special and typical options such as 20x oil or dry large NA objective, motorized stages for many glasses, special specimen holders, immersion oil dropping device, specimen preparation tools, slide handler system, slide identification bar code device and more.  

The below article are intended for user preferring to choice complete set himself. Just the same we recommend read it briefly a user who doesn’t interest in technical details and is going to book a full system through our consultation.

A microscope choice

Modern microscopy system needs binocular microscope with additional phototube – trinocular microscope.  We offer also cost effective models without oculars with viewing by videocamera on computer screen only.

The MECOS system can be completed by microscopes of many manufacturers. A microscope must include  adapter for videocamera connection (C-mount or F-mount) with magnitude matching to censor size of videocamera. Cost effective complete set arises if a usual microscope is completed by additional motorization equipment of another manufacturer. The equipment can’t be integrated with a bad mechanics quality cheep microscopes. There are examples of low boundary mechanics quality microscopes among models of different manufacturers: NIKON Eclipse E200; Zeiss Axiostar+; Motic BA300; Olympus BX41; Leica DME; Meiji Techno MT4300H. Don’t hesitate to consult us if you are going to buy microscope for MECOS system yourself.

A computer choice

MECOS systems use PC computer beginning from Pentium 4 Win XP. Some videocameras can demand additional standard utilities. Advanced sets are preferred for more fast work, database size and reliability, net connection. Resolution of display must match resolution  of videocamera used.  Please don’t hesitate to consult us if you are going to buy PC yourself.

Equipment of motorization choice

Equipment of motorization (automation) can consist of the following units: motorized focus drive; motorized xy stage; motorized objective revolver and motorized condenser; motorized filter holder; motorized slide handler, slide bar code identification and others. Choice of motorized equipment depends on microscope properties and needs our consultations. For more details see Motorization equipment

Specimen preparation tools choice

Advanced property of MECOS programs is possibility to work with hand made specimens of blood. Hand techniques of specimen preparation use cheap materials  but have low level of standardization and are labor intensive. Modern automated specimen preparation devices can improve significantly labor conditions and analyses accuracy.  We recommend to use such devices, see  Specimen preparation tools. Specimen preparation devices are strongly recommended fore some techniques such as helminth eggs analysis.

Videocamera choice

There are hundreds of types of videocameras for microscopy on market. They differ by resolution, time of shooting, speed of input, color quality, sensitivity, level of noise, controllability, live video quality, computer interface and others.

As quantity as quality of image pixels are important for computer analysis and for visual analysis on a computer screen. Color 3CCD cameras have advantage in accuracy of color transfer above 1CCD (1CMOS) cameras. Cameras with 10 or more bits per pixel have advantage in  accuracy  of brightness (dynamic range) transfer above cameras with less bits per pixel.

The more the number of image pixels a censor of a camera has, the less its image per second transfer speed to a computer. For example 4 M pixel color images can be input presently not faster then 15-20 frames per second. It may be too slow for live object viewing or for fast automatic analysis.  The more magnification of microscope objective is used the less videocamera pixel resolution is effective because of optical restrictions. So the choice of videocamera with large pixel resolution can be not best one for your application. Please don’t hesitate to consult us if you are going to buy videocamera yourself.